If you had to make the torture decision, what would you do?

Let’s assume that torture is the only way to extract vital homeland security information that you know one in a hundred prisoners has. Let’s further assume that we know with 25% certainty that the person has time sensitive information that if revealed would save thousands of lives and 75% chance the prisoner doesn’t. If you had to make the torture decision what would you do?

Unless you believe that there are no circumstance when inflicting great pain on someone to get them to reveal secrets you are a moral relativist on this subject. In the case of torture that means there are some circumstance under which you might condone torture.

Condoning it isn’t the same as being the final authority authorizing it. That being said, I think we have to engage in something like the actuarial analyses the insurance companies do when we ask ourselves this question.

Consider this description of what actuaries do:

Actuaries evaluate the likelihood of events and quantify the contingent outcomes in order to minimize losses, both emotional and financial, associated with uncertain undesirable events. Since many events, such as death, cannot be totally avoided, it is helpful to take measures to minimize their financial impact when they occur. These risks can affect both sides of the balance sheet, and require asset management, liability management, and valuation skills. Analytical skills, business knowledge and understanding of human behavior and the vagaries of information systems are required to design and manage programs that control risk.

The design of effective torture is complex but you don’t need a top security clearance to expound on it.

We already know that the CIA used the religious convictions of prisoners and any phobias they could discover to terrify, shame and humiliated them. It’s hard to believe this could persuade a hardcore Muslim terrorist to impart accurate information to help his sworn enemies.

The ultimate threat of death can only be used successfully under two circumstance. One is that the torture victim believes you will actually kill him, and of course the other is that he cares. You can try to change the former by killing another prisoner in front of him, something that has been done throughout history. But you can’t change the later.

I think everyone agrees that torture is the inflicting of extraordinary suffering, pain and anxiety and that in most cases of dealing with those held in captivity the people tortured are only suspected of having vital information.

In order to obtain the information we want we have to torture a lot of innocent people. This isn’t like taking foolproof DNA samples where you can rule out suspects with certainty since the person with the information can beat the "torture test".

When do you torture?

If your answer is "never" then there’s no decision to make. If your answer is any time you feel like it, there isn’t any decision either.

If your answer is sometimes, then when?

Like it or not it comes down to the numbers.

(Read the discussion below as the comments are, as often happens, more illuminating than the column.)

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Thanks Obama for being cautious when it comes to prosecuting proud criminals, on a soapbox

Let’s say Cheney and three other thugs were actually going to jail proudly claiming that they were being jailed for protecting America from a terror attack for seven years and now that Obama gave suspects some civil liberty rights we are destined to be attacked again, and al Qaeda is strong enough to cooperate with this ploy. Then George Bush is sobbingly hauled off the prison, crying that he had no idea what was going on.

Let’s say instead that there is a South African type, Truth Commission, where Cheney etc. can only be jailed for what he leaves out and all the Cold War dirt gets revealed.

Then Cheney is sued by the relatives of the three Pentagon employees who died because he secretly ordered the 9/11 planes heading toward Washington DC not to be shot down, the way the relatives of O. J. Simpson keep suing Simpson.

Following every war we got our Civil Liberties back until the Cold War followed in the heals of World War II. Now there is another chance but bin Laden is in the way.

I think Cheney proudly declaring he is being jailed for preserving America from another attack is something we need to avoid.

Far brighter people than myself, when it comes to the law were instrumental in hammering out both international and national laws concerning this issue and their consensus is there’s to be “no torture” under any circumstances and I so too heartily concur. : |

Carl Nemo **==

p.s. Maybe the site administrators should run a CHB poll concerning this issue just to see how we “tick” as a group. If so, then I surely hope I’m not disappointed in the character of the folks that frequent this site.

I feel that I must voice my opinion here. Much of the Vietnam war was fought by “irregular” soldiers, who did not wear uniforms. Our own war to free the colonies from England involved many combatants who did not wear uniforms. I suspect the same is true of Venezuelas’ war with Che Guevaras’ combatants. Also true of Iraq, Afghanistan, and anywhere a guerrilla war takes place. Torture proves nothing except we have zero regard for treaties we sign, as well as our own Constitution. Just like the old witch trials, where the suspect was tied to a chair and thrown into deep water. If they drowned, they were innocent. If they had enough body fat to float, they were “proven” to be witches. Nothing is gained from torture, except lies to make the torture stop. Dubya’s administration proved that we are not much better than the Pax Romana, when dissenters were crucified. Have we learned so little in 2,000 years?

Torture makes us little better than animals, like the cat biting the field mouse to play with it before he kills it.
The fact that torture took place, as admitted on national television by Cheney, shames every American. Too bad Cheney isn’t ashamed of it too.

Nancy Pelosi herself was given a tour of one torture center, along with other congresspeople back in 2002.

Surely the Democrats won’t investigate themselves, much like the Republicans didn’t want independent investigations launched when they were in charge.

“Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.”

So apparently, not only were some Democrats A-OK with torture, two of them thought we weren’t torturing enough.

Thanks Griff for the referenced article. I have the link in my archives and am familiar with the material and the involved Congressional players.

What should have been done that day is for the CIA to have given these Congressional subject matter experts (not) a quickie demo of the procedure, the end result would have been enlightening for most of them to say the least.

Knowing the key legislators involved with their “push harder” mentality, all of them would have needed 911 emergency call assistance within the first few minutes or less!

Fouled underwear, accelerated over the top heartrates and possibly some being induced to heart attack level conditions mainly because they are out of shape civilians and not battle toughened enemy combatants.

What’s interesting every one of these so-called Congressional “oversight” people have dirt locked in their souls that’s far more grievous than most Middle Eastern based terrorists when it comes to causing grave harm to a people and their nation; ie., the citizens of this once great country.

I’m sure their attitude towards the condonement of water-boarding would have had a major realignment post a hands-on session…! : |

Again I want to thank Hal Brown for actually creating a discussion on this subject. It’s hard to debate when one side says “Let’s not admit to torture in public”. Note I corrected a huge typo in my earlier comment

Using television for a dramatic device that, while a one in millions possibility for any of us, is something anyone that watches crime shows has seen depicted numerous times.

Your child or spouse was kidnapped and with absolute certainty one of the kidnappers has been caught.

Would you approve of the police using "enhanced interrogation techniques" to find our where they were being hidden?

If you say yes, what would you be willing and capable of doing yourself?

I don’t think any of the decision makers of the Bush administration considered these ethical and moral complexities. I doubt any even considered Blackstone’s Formulation if they even knew what it was.

To the contrary, I think they believed in something I think Saddam Hussein practiced. That is that it doesn’t matter how many innocent and ignorant people you tortured to get information from the one unknown person who you thought could reveal some tidbit you wanted.

I wonder if our conscience-impaired inquisitors were tempted to use the proven method of killing another prisoner in front of the primary suspect to convince him they might murder him too. As described the in testimony of The Winter Soldier Investigation (see footnote) this was sometimes done in Vietnam.

Waterboard displayed at Tuol Sleng in Cambodia. Prisoners’ legs were shackled to the bar on the right, their wrists were restrained to the brackets on the left and water was poured over their face using blue watering can. Below, a former victim of Cambodian torture demonstrating technique.

Footnote:

PANELIST. Another method they used in regard to helicopters is sometimes when they captured three suspected enemy people they might take them for a joy-ride. They usually tie them up and put a blindfold on them and they’ll put maybe three guys in a C-54 and fly off. They’ll ask the guys in the air, "What is your unit?" and all this jive, and if they don’t cooperate, they just might take one of them and say, "Okay, take off the blindfold," and just shove him right out. Now this gives us a psychological edge because apparently it works. When the other two guys come down to the ground, they’re scared and they cooperate more readily than they ever would before.

MODERATOR. Mr. Camile, you had some actual instances of observing Vietnamese being thrown out of helicopters.

CAMILE. On Operation Stone, I was on the ground and I didn’t see this Vietnamese pushed out, but I did see him come flying out and land over where we were.

This isn’t like taking foolproof DNA samples where you can rule out suspects with certainty since the person with the information can beat the “torture test”.

Even DNA testing isn’t 100% accurate. Torture is fine so long as you are looking for the wrong answers, or a scapegoat. Which do you think we are looking for?

Field torture has happened for a long time. Captives in Vietnam died frequently. Revenge was often the only motive. The Bush Administration turned the “don’t ask don’t tell” field torture into policy for it’s prisons across the globe.

Would you give a policeman a gun and a badge and tell him to shoot anyone he wants? Everytime someone gets shot there is an investigation into whether excessive force was used. Was it self defense or did he just shoot the guy because he liked the idea. The Bush Administration is arrogant enough to think it is above the law and is defying any attempt at investigation. How can those little people investigate an elite ruling class like us? The nerve of them. I don’t know about you people, but to me these guy’s were getting their rocks off on this.

I understand the gray area under discussion, and I understand the pressure to torture under these circumstances, which is why we need a moral compass. The easy moral questions are no problem. It’s the tough questions that need flat right or wrong answers.

You see, torture would actually harm us under the circumstances you describe. The victim would simply admit to anything the torturer threw at him, sending your investigators helter skelter and preventing them from uncovering the real plot.

First off, I’d follow Griff’s advice…try not to do things that make them want to attack us.
That said, we have to accept the fact that no matter what we do or don’t do, there will always be groups who intend to attack us no matter what.
Radical Islam has always openly acknowledged that they intend to establish a global Islamic caliphate.
Therefore our mere existence may be justification enough, regardless of our foreign policy.
Secondly, I would NEVER write a legal opinion that attempts to get around laws forbidding torture.
If our government captures people that they are convinced are high value targets, they must proceed on an individual case by case basis and take their chances where they may.
If it turns out that we’ve tortured a high value target, and they provide us with information that prevents another attack, that’s one thing.
Having an entire prison full of inmates that we routinely torture because “Daddy said it’s okay” is quite another.
And we now know the outcome of that practice, and the outcome of trying to weasel around what is undoubtedly a policy against torture which has served the nations of the world for several decades.
I guarantee you we’re not the first nation, Western or otherwise, that has tortured the occasional high value target. But we’re probably one of a very few, or the only, nation that has ever tried to publicly justify it as if we have some moral right to do so on a regular basis.

And lastly, you will not see this argument addressed this way ANYWHERE in the media. I guarantee that.

A retired Army (SF/Delta) friend and I have discussed this issue (we have known each other since our days at Bragg in the 70s) and his response was very succinct and concise “You don’t torture prisoners. You just don’t do that shit.”

I haven’t come to a conclusion as to what exactly I’d like to see done about the Bush / Cheney approved torture among the options under consideration.

If President Obama wants to focus on the future and have the "distraction" of the Justice Department and/or Congress pursuing justice right up to the top in the torture case, perhaps he should look at this picture and be reminded of how many Americans died for what this flag stands for.

All I can say is that whatever the decision I hope it assures that this never happens again.

Bringing up Japanese culture and the act of ritual suicide made me think of the role shame plays in our culture.

My understanding of Japanese culture, which is very limited, is that shame has an important role that begins in childhood. The Japanese committed horrendous acts of torture of their enemies so shame seems to be tied in to acts that break a societal code.

Compared to Japan, again my sense, our culture is shameless.

How often do American children lie with a straight face? How difficult is it for adults to admit they were wrong?

Does Bernie Madoff for what he did do Colin Powell for what he didn’t do, feel any shame?

My experience is that lack of shame goes with the refusal to admit you’re wrong and that with Americans this is far for a male trait than female.

Just watching Morning Joe and Scarborough made a comment that seemed naive to me.

He was trying to make the point that whether or not one believes torture is morally wrong you can’t argue that it has been successful because we’ve haven’t had an attack on U.S. soil. Of course he can’t point to an instance where torture actually prevented an attack.

Aside from the fact that he doesn’t consider occupied Iraq and Afghanistan part of the United States he failed to address what I think is an important question.

Simply, have the ranks of Al Qaeda grown since we began our torture program?

Please bear in mind that “The 47 Ronin” is a story set during the Tokugawa period, so that seeing the attitudes it embodies as typical of today’s Japan would be like equating the behavior of Shakespearian heroes with what goes on in the USA today. It isn’t, moreover, the case that the 47 ronin were ashamed of what they had done in killing the enemy whom they blamed for their lord’s death. They were proud of what they had done. They knew, however, that what they had done was illegal and, it was the full measure of their honor that they were willing to pay the penalty, preferring an honorable suicide to being put to death in a dishonorable manner.

John McCreery

If you are a U.S. citizen and live outside the USA, register to vote and request an absentee ballot.

I watched Bill Maher on Friday, and he happened to have on former CIA operative (or whatever he was) Bob Baer. Mr. Baer claims (and I don’t doubt it) to have been tortured in Iran. He stated basically that he told them anything they wanted to hear, even though he was lying, just to make the pain stop. So while they got information they thought they wanted, none of it was good information because he lied. I have no doubt the same situation exists with our alleged Al Queda prisoners.

Oh, and he said the situation where someone has a bomb hidden somewhere but you have someone you can maybe torture the information out of to save everyone in the building.

Since the premise is a fallacy, the whole thing is ridiculous. Historically, we know torture doesn’t work: look at how many PROMINENT people were killed because others were tortured and gave false information because they couldn’t stand it anymore? How many were implicated because the monarch, or ruler, wanted them put out of the way and used ‘enhanced interrogation’ to do so? Isn’t that what Bush / Cheney did to try to justify the Iraq War? Some of this torture was done to try to implicate Saddam Hussein with 9/11, which Saddam had no part in.

The United States is better than this. We are not a medieval nation, a Banana Republic, nor a dictatorship. We’re supposed to be a moral nation, which is why the stand so many right wing religious nutters take on this is so ridiculous: and shows what hippocrites they are. We’re supposed to be a model for how a decent people are supposed to act: therefore, WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO TORTURE PEOPLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Those who are guilty of this crime need to face the consequences of their actions, especially the criminals who rewrote the rulebook so underlings would torture suspects in violation of U.S. and international laws (which we co-wrote and signed!).

If, if, if, if….No ifs, no buts, no ands! Turture is inhumane. Period! And quoting the Bible to justify it shows just how morally bankrupt we really are. We do not base our laws on the Bible, we base them on the Constitution.

Honey, there are plenty of people around, like Mike Huckabee, who would love to replace the Constitution with the Bible. In fact, Huckabee campaigned on exactly that premise. Those are the people who scare me most. Because anything Biblical goes with them. They would probably find a way to justify human breeding farms if they thought they could get away with it.

The <a href="http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html"> Skeptic's Annotated Bible</a>, as Robert Green Ingersol put it in "The Gods" (1872) "is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book they wish to be recognized in our Constitution as the source of all authority and justice!"

They list 919 passages so anybody wanting to cite the Bible to justify torture can easily find something righteous to back their contention that mere water boarding is nothing compared to what God ordered.

I would not torture anyone, ever, under any circumstances. What would I do? I would take a cue from a famous German interrogator of WWII (I’ll track down the source of this story later, if need be). He never inflicted pain. Quite the opposite–he found the best way to get information was to become the prisoner’s friend. Often, they gave valuable information without even realizing they had. The guy was a brilliant conversationalist, continually praising his captive for his bravery and cleverness of his forces war plans and the excellence of his equipment. The captive, without even knowing it, would contradict some assertions, agree with others, expand on still others. All without even being aware he was giving very valuable and reliable intel to his captor.

For eight years we have been a nation devoid of a moral compass. Condoning or practicing torture makes us nothing else but terrorists. As a nation we must decide whether we are willing to live in peril, whether we are willing to absorb punches from an opponent, or whether we are going to gamble that our use of torture might be able to prevent a tragedy.

The answer to me is crystal clear: we must accept risk to be able to walk through history with our heads held high, proud of our country and proud of our standing in the world community.

We now have a president who is trying to restore our self-esteem and dignity. I am proud of a United States that will stand up and say, “This is the right thing to do. We will protect our citizens consistent with our tenets and beliefs, but we will not bend our moral standards for any reason.”

An excellent response Griff and most accurate in your recommendations concerning the U.S. changing its behavior as a nation. The next thing we’ll be trying against “terrorists” will be roadside crucifixions as in ancient Rome. Why not, we’re dealing with “evil terrorists”…no?! /:|

There can be “no” torture under any circumstances…period! Per Title 18, Part I, chapter 118, section 2441 of the U.S. Code passed as of January 3, 2007 states so clearly and is also in accord with international law concerning the same. I’ll provide the link so people can read the law of the land which is in agreement with international standards directly.

There can be no ifs, ands, or buts concerning this issue and violaters at all levels “need” to be prosecuted for such infractions of the law. The Israeli state relentlessly hunts down war criminals that were involved in the holocaust. Torture on an individual basis or on groups of people is a reenactment of holocaust style attrocities and cannot be tolerated!

What apologists for torture seem to forget that if you allow your government or any other to do so on this planet then they will use torture against their very own citizens when the need arises. In an age where the word “terrorist” seems to trigger everyone to wet their undies, most seem eager to torture terrorists guilty or not so they can get back to “safe shopping”…no?!

At least some of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to had to be false which didn’t mean he wasn’t an al Qaeda leader. Moussaoui from those who were tried since, likely wasn’t the 12th 9/11 hijacker that didn’t get passed US customs, but the way he blamed his Jewish lawyer and urged listening Americans to blame Israel for it all, shows he was a skilled al Qaeda leader, and if he was subject to sleep deprivation somehow didn’t get a fuzzy brain because of it. Since you can’t torture a kid by choking who enjoys the choking game it is possible that the US never tortured the badest of the bad. To do so would be to claim that they were placed in a country club prison with a lot of videos around and spread stories that they were enjoying themselves and a little reluctantly sorry that they got themselves and others into this mess. And fake or obtain real tapes from relatives saying “I forgive you dad” like you asked.

By the way Bush withdrew US troops from sacred Saudi soil in 2003, the presence of which bin Laden felt was the ultimate insult on Islam. After which bin Laden had to worry about another terror attack leading to an adrenaline rich US ending up sending troops back into Saudi Arabia. So the ability of the US to get intelligence suffers from false assumptions. See, http://capitolhillblue.com/blog/2419

*

I guess that I and others are avoiding answering Hal Brown’s question. Yes, if I was in control and actually believed that torturing someone would get vital information I would do it. But if the information was from a child such Khalid Mohammed’s 7 and 9-year-old children tortured into telling where he was hiding, or the torture of or a witness who told of a terror attack planned with only vague details so al Qaeda wouldn’t know he told, I’m not really sure what I would do. But again as related to the badest of the bad, I know you can’t torture someone who enjoys playing the choking game. I would probably be wasting my time trying to get any good information from Moussaoui

“Yes, if I was in control and actually believed that torturing someone would get vital information I would do it.”…extract from reply

Wow Richard! I realize you said you were answering based on Hal Brown’s contrived situation, but you as most, including him, seem to forget the fact there can be no torture period, predicated on existing statutes. There can be no sophistry concerning the splitting of hairs concerning even contrived situations.

Now to say you would do so on an individual basis should cause you some self shame good buddy!

Think, just think! How would you like to be tortured by someone like yourself when you know you have no vital information to provide, but this self-perceived good citizen; ie., “YOU”, think you have the right to extract information via such evil methods.

That’s why this nation is going down the tubes. We’ve become a nation of scofflaws from the highest to lowest levels of our government and the populace as a whole. We no longer seemingly know right from wrong or even have a sense of decency. : |

In defense of Carl Nemo and/or George Bush. If those of us who would be willing to torture in what we thought was an emergency, and if I was in George Bush’s place, and dumb enough not to realize that the main reason al Qaeda wanted to attack the US ending when US troops withdrew from Saudi soil, I might get terrified after 2003, that I couldn’t find any evidence of any sort of attack on the US after 2003.

So to misquote Carl Nemo, “Those of us who were willing to torture could have ended up in some ways as bad as George Bush”.

All over the Internet and newspapers many are preaching never use torture vs this is a subject we shouldn’t be willing to admit in public. At Capitol Hill Blue we are actually discussing the issue. Perhaps if there was discussion instead of preaching on other sites, people who oppose of torture in all cases won’t be talking to themselves,http://capitolhillblue.com/node/15268
RichardKanePA

Much of what makes us think about torture is coming up with hypotheticals.

The what-ifs sound academic but I think some are helpful.

So here’s another one.

Let’s say we had a hard core terrorist who we knew was privy to information that was vital to stop a terror attack and no amount of water boarding, infliction of pain and threats of death would get him to reveal it.

Suppose that we had his pregnant wife and four little children in custody.

Would it be acceptable to chop their fingers off, or even kill them one at a time hoping that he’d talk to stop us?

Not to be overly dramatic, what if this person knew the location of a huge dirty bomb set to go off in "24 Hours"? Might you authorize this?

We don’t have to ask what Hitler, Mao Ze-Dong, Pol Pot, Stalin would have done (we know the Gestapo did these kinds of things) and what Osama bin Laden would endorse because human life is cheap to them.

At the end of the day, I have just enough moral relativism in me to concede, if I ever truly believed that torture was the only fast, sure way to get time critical information, I could, and would, do so.

And then I would plead guilty and throw myself on the mercy of a court of my peers.

If you claim there are circumstances in which you believe, that strongly, that there is no other option, but claim you don’t believe you can convince six other people of that, nor convince the governor of the state, nor the President, to pardon you or commute the sentence, then you’ve convinced me you never really believed it was the only option.

And anyone that tortures without really believing it is the only possible option, worth going to prison or being executed for if need be, should be kept in a country in which it is definitely and affirmatively illegal.